As part of the project by tech giant Silica, data from a surgical robotics company was stored in a piece of glass the size of a coaster.
CMR Surgical, the British medical technology company behind شركة Versius Surgical Robot, has partnered with Microsoft for what it describes as “the world’s first in health data.”
The companies worked together to store clinical health data from the Versius procedures in a small glass dish.
The proof-of-concept platter, measuring 75mm x 75mm, is a new long-term file storage technology being developed as part of Microsoft’s Silica project. This research project uses recent discoveries in ultra-fast laser optics and artificial intelligence to encode data in quartz glass.
CMR said Versius, its surgical robot system for limited access (or keyhole) surgeries, collects large amounts of anonymous data. He added that long-term archive storage could allow the preservation of surgery data, including procedural videos and telemetry data, which could be leveraged for future clinical study and training.
“Through this exciting experience with Microsoft, CMR has the opportunity to use future-leading technology to securely store a large amount of clinical data,” said Luke Hares, CMR’s chief technology officer.
“This is important because data collection in surgical practice will allow us to gain important information over time and to fulfill our mission to make simple access surgery available to all who can benefit from it.”
Jurgen Willis, vice president of program management at Microsoft, added that working with CMR can help Project Silica learn more about the long-term file storage needs within the healthcare market specifically.
“Long-term medical archival data can improve medical record management and enable healthcare companies to help their patients more effectively,” he said.
What is Project Silica?
Project Silica is a Microsoft research initiative that aims to rethink traditional storage systems.
The laser encodes data on the crystal creating layers of lattices and nanoscale 3D distortions. Machine learning algorithms can read the data by decoding the images and patterns that are created when polarized light shines through glass.
Glass is used because it is unaffected by electromagnetic pulses or water damage and is flexible against heat and corrosion. So once the data is encoded within the glass, it can last for tens of thousands of years without the data degrading.
The first proof of concept for this technology in 2019 saw the Microsoft Store and it completely brought back the 1978 Superman movie on a piece of glass roughly the size of a coaster.
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